1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to liquid cleaning preparations.
2. Statement of Related Art
British Patent 800,705 discloses liquid cleaning preparations which are used for all purposes, but more especially for washing fabrics, and which, in addition to anionic and nonionic surfactants, contain, inter alia, small quantities of water-soluble cellulose or starch derivatives or water-soluble or collodially soluble polymers, such as polyvinylpyrrolidone, to increase soil suspending power.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,380,925 discloses liquid cleaning preparations which may also contain water-soluble substances of high molecular weight as soil suspending agents. Water-soluble salts of polyacrylic acid and water-soluble derivatives of cellulose, such as carboxymethyl cellulose, are mentioned as examples. In this case, too, mixtures of anionic and nonionic surfactants are preferably used.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,591,509 discloses liquid all-purpose cleaning preparations which, in addition to water-soluble, synthetic surfactants, organic solvents and, optionally, water-soluble builders, contain a small quantity of a special water-soluble carboxymethyl cellulose, namely one having a degree of substitution of from about 1 to about 2 and a degree of polymerization of from about 1,000 to 3,000, and also water. This product has a thickening effect and is intended to improve the adhesion of the cleaning preparations to the soiled surfaces.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,970,594 discloses liquid builder-containing cleaning preparations for hard surfaces containing small quantities of preferably anionic surfactants in combination with small quantities of a mixture of polyvinyl alcohol and/or polyvinylpyrrolidone and polysaccharide salt, which are also said to show improved soil removing power.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,175,062 describes liquid cleaning preparations for hard surfaces which consist essentially of a mixture of anionic and nonionic surfactants and, optionally, other standard constituents of such preparations, such as for example builders, adducts of ethylene oxide with aliphatic vicinal diols or partially etherified diols having a linear C.sub.10 -C.sub.20 alkyl chain used as the nonionic surfactants. These cleaning preparations may also contain additions of water-soluble high molecular weight substances, such as polyvinyl alcohol, polyvinylpyrrolidone and carboxymethyl cellulose, to enhance their cleaning effect.
None of the polymeric cleaning enhancers mentioned above satisfied all the demands which consumers are now making on liquid cleaning preparations for hard surfaces.
According to published German application 28 40 463, a totally unexpected increase in the cleaning performance of liquid preparations for hard surfaces can be obtained by adding considerably smaller quantities of polyethylene glycols having a molecular weight of from 500,000 to 4,000,000 instead of the known additions of soil-suspending compounds.
According to published German application 29 13 049, equally favorable cleaning results can be obtained, even without any anionic surfactants, by using water-soluble, nonionic, weakly anionic or cationic polymers from the group of polyethylene glycols, polyvinyl alcohols, polyvinyl pyrrolidones, cellulose ethers, polysaccharides, proteins, and polyacrylamides having average molecular weights of 5,000 to 10,000,000 and preferably of 20,000 to 2,000,000, or mixtures of these polymers, instead of anionic surfactants.